<sect1 id="what-is-gnumeric">
  <title>What is Gnumeric?</title>
  <para>Welcome to Gnumeric, a well developed free software based spreadsheet. 
We hope you find Gnumeric intuitive and easy to use. This manual will guide 
you through using all the aspects of Gnumeric.</para>
  <para>Great qualities of Gnumeric include:</para>
  <itemizedlist>
  <listitem> <para>
  <guilabel>Fully featured.</guilabel> &mdash; Gnome has the full range of 
features expected in a quality spreadsheet application. These include 
support for graphs, an extensive range of functions, cell-formatting, printing, 
a plug-in system, internationalisation and much more!
  </para> </listitem>
  <listitem> <para>
  <guilabel>Compatibility with existing spreadsheet applications.</guilabel> 
&mdash; Gnome has a powerful range of import and export filters which will 
import your existing Excel, 1-2-3, Applix, Sylk, and other file formats.
  </para> </listitem>
  <listitem> <para>
  <guilabel>Graphs and component support.</guilabel> &mdash; Gnome uses 
the <keycap>Bonobo component architecture</keycap> to support drawing graphs 
and other components. 
  </para> </listitem>
  <listitem> <para>
  <guilabel>Free Software</guilabel> &mdash; Gnome is <ulink type="http" 
url="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">free software</ulink> 
released under the <ulink type="http" url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU 
GPL</ulink>.
  </para> </listitem>
  <listitem> <para>
  <guilabel>Documentation</guilabel> &mdash; Gnome is fully documented with 
an extensive online manual and documentation covering all functions. 
  </para> </listitem>
  </itemizedlist> 
</sect1>
<sect1 id="spreadsheet">
  <title>What is a Spreadsheet?</title>
  <para>A spreadsheet is an application that will help you manage any kind 
of data. It will allow you to store large amounts of data, process them 
according to varying formulae, and calculate results and graphs. It is 
especially good for data sets involving lots of numbers. Gnumeric has a 
huge range of functions which can process your figures.</para>
  <para>A spreadsheet can be used to maintain budget data, time allocations, 
personal finances, membership lists and more. Anything which involves storage 
and processing of number based data sets are good for handling in a spreadsheet.</para>
 <figure id="sample-gnumeric">
    <title>An example of what a spreadsheet can do.</title>
    <screenshot>
    <graphic fileref="figures/sample_gnumeric.png" format="PNG"></graphic>
   </screenshot>
  </figure>
  <para><xref linkend="sample_gnumeric.png"> shows some advanced uses of the 
Gnumeric spreadsheet. These involve graph support and embedding components. 
On the very left hand side you can also see how Gnumeric is being used to 
calculate some budget information.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
  <title>Getting Started.</title>
  <para>The best way to learn how to use Gnumeric is to begin exploring the 
program yourself. Type in some numbers into some cells and see what you can 
do to them. For writing formulae look at <xref linkend="formulas"> You might 
also be interested in learning how to format the data, so look at 
<xref linkend="cell-formatting"> </para>
  <para>If you would like further investigate functionality Gnumeric offers, 
browse through the table of contents to the <xref linkend="index">. You will 
be able to see what advanced features Gnumeric has. To see the very big list 
of functions that Gnumeric supports, look at <xref linkend="reference"></para>
  <para>If you would like a step by step tour through each part of the Gnumeric 
interface, then read the following chapter entitled 
<link linkend="worksheet">The Worksheet</link> It will take you through 
each element of the Gnumeric graphical user interface, explaining the purpose 
of each part.</para>
</sect1>


